


Windward

by SassSexandSmut



Series: Windward [1]
Category: The Fall (TV 2013), The X-Files
Genre: F/F, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Scully goes to London, light consumption of flowery alcohol, possibly excessive use of metaphors, smutty smut smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-23
Updated: 2016-12-20
Packaged: 2018-09-01 16:08:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8630575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SassSexandSmut/pseuds/SassSexandSmut
Summary: Scully's night out in a London bar is interrupted by the captivating Detective Superintendent Stella Gibson.





	1. Chapter 1

The man had not stopped talking since he ordered her a drink—a demure red wine she might have appreciated had it not come from him. Every morning before the conference, he cornered her in a hallway, called her sweetheart, spoke to her like condescending higher ups once did in the FBI. 

She gulped down the wine out of spite. He was chattering on about the advances his team had made in detecting genetic diseases, defects, the list went on… she wanted to slap him for making such a boast of it. She wondered what he would say to the story of her cancer, to Mulder’s resurrection her son’s abilities.

Across the room, Stella arched her eyebrows, leaning comfortably against the bar. 

“I can see you deciding whether or not to intervene,” said the bartender, as Stella sipped her second Scotch of the night. 

“I’m drifting between anger and mild entertainment—he’s chattering himself into a hole, oblivious to the fact that no one is listening.”

The bartender glanced back to the small redhead, who consciously avoided eye contact with the imposing man standing beside her.

“She’s a doctor,” said Stella, catching his gaze. “From America.” She turned her hard blue stare to the man with the combed back hair. “So is he,” she said coldly.

The woman grew more visibly uncomfortable by the second, but unfamiliar with London and clearly out of her element, she stayed silent. Something told Stella that if this had been her home turf, the woman could have killed him with words.

“That’s it,” Stella grumbled, snatching her scotch from the counter. “I’m through listening to this bullshit.”

 °°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

Scully rolled her eyes and wished he would shut up and buy her another drink. As long as she had to put up with him, he could at least be supplying her with enough alcohol to make it bearable. 

“It’s been awhile,” a husky, unfamiliar, and distinctly British voice spoke up behind her. A warm hand slid over her hip, and a stranger with blonde hair and features to cut wandering fingers sat down beside her. 

All angles and sharp edges, the quiet confidence of the world-weary, the woman smelled of coffee, scotch, and gunpowder. She snaked her arm around Scully’s back. “It’s wonderful to see you here again. I thought you might not come, after last night.” Her lips curved into a mischievous smirk, and she winked at Scully, squeezing her hand reassuringly.

Scully leaned into her warm, reassuring touch. She smiled adoringly at her rescuer, and it wasn’t entirely feigned. 

The man glanced between them, and the blonde looked him in the eye, her proud face lifted in a challenge. “I’m sorry; I didn’t notice you there,” she said charmingly, holding out her hand. “Detective Superintendent Gibson.”

His eyebrows shot up, but he shook her hand, looking mildly dazed.

Scully looked the blonde woman up and down for the first time—black skirt, silk blouse, daggers of heels. She chewed her lower lip. “Detective?” she questioned. 

The woman nodded. “It’s just Stella to you though,” she said with a wan smirk. “And your name?” 

“Scully. Doctor Dana Scully.” Scully vaguely caught notice of the arrogant doctor, across the room now. Another girl, another glass of flowery wine.

“You going to rescue that poor girl too?” Scully angled her head to her colleague, flirting with two girls in their twenties who were clearly just trying to enjoy their night out. Stella cocked her head as the man turned back, watching them over his shoulder. Slyly, she glanced at Scully’s lips.

“Doctor Dana Scully.” Stella grinned. “We ought to have a proper introduction, don’t you think?”

Scully shrugged and nodded slightly, catching the intent, and Stella captured her lips in a warm kiss that tasted of mint and quality alcohol. The man sulked and turned his back again, his attention focused now on his beer. Stella chucked into Dana Scully’s lips and broke the kiss.

Scully snorted quietly. “I must say, I’m entertained.”

“It’s one way to get acquainted.” 

Stella did not remove her hand from Scully’s waist, and Scully did not shift away. She leaned comfortably into the detective, face flushed from the wine.

“How are you enjoying London?” Stella asked, playing with the tie on Scully’s coat.

“Much better now.”

“I’m glad to hear it. I don’t often come across such interesting people in this bar, and I’m not talking about him.” 

Stella flagged down the bartender. “Tab please,” she requested. “I will be leaving soon.” She paused for a moment, turning to Scully. “You’re welcome to join me.”

Scully considered the offer. “What would joining you entail?” She pushed aside the heat in her belly, the buzz of Stella’s fingers around her waist. 

“That,” said Stella, low and husky again in a potential invitation, “is entirely up to you.”

The detective slipped her arm through Scully’s and they strode from the bar. In the dark, Stella became a graceful silhouette, her shadow stalking smoothly behind her like Peter Pan, towering over strangers in the lamplight.

It was comforting, dim tungsten on Stella’s silk blouse, the familiar bump of a sidearm at her hip that Scully had come to find reassuring after so many years in danger. Struck by the rare moment of peace, she rested her head on Stella’s shoulder. For a second it seemed as though Stella might draw away from the gesture, but she only wrapped her arm tighter over the smaller woman’s waist.

“My flat is just around the corner,” she said softly, unwilling to disturb the sounds of a London night: cabs, piano tunes, crackling cable television, strangers talking in the streets.

Scully nodded. There was something in Stella that she had immediately trusted—in spite of her refined taste, she had a bit of the weathered sailor in her. It seemed she had walked through hell and come out the other side. Like Scully, she had fought her way into what was largely a male-dominated field, demanding respect and taking shit from no one.

Stella’s flat mirrored her manner of dress: sleek, clean, tailored to her exact needs. In the kitchen, Stella poured water and wine, laid out a cheese plate, slipped out of her heels and into a pair of furry flats. In short, Stella had grown comfortable and content, inviting Scully to do the same.

Scully wrung her hands and sat on the sofa, unsure what to do or say.

“Would you like to eat?” Stella called from the kitchen, and to her surprise, Scully’s own lips curved into a smirk at the double entendre, intentional or not.

“Sure,” she said, whatever it meant.

She could do with a one night stand, a release from the uptight rooms and seminars with stuffy, patronizing old men. She was fond of London, sick of the conference, and rather enamored with the mysterious Stella Gibson. Stella seemed the type to spend a night with—she would hand a number over in the morning with the instructions to call if ever in London again.

Stella brought the wine and cheese plate into the living room, handing a glass to Scully. Her hand slipped behind Scully’s neck, seeking permission or rejection, and Scully leaned toward her with sultry eyes and a contented smirk. 

“What was that about a bite to eat?” Scully arched her perfect eyebrows, daring the detective to abandon the wine and make a decisive move. It was the sort of thing she rarely did, the salt and acid tongue. These were the rare moments when her smile lines made her restless, reckless, reaching for a woman who belonged to a different world, had suffered different trials and emerged with the same wear in her confident gait. 

They had both stared into the abyss for years too long, and Scully thought it better they examine each other instead. Perhaps it was time to re-discover love in the hands they had fought with. To be fair, Scully mused, lust would do for tonight: a reverent lust, selfish and giving in equal parts. And if (the ever-present if that tainted their line of work) they lived long enough, love might one day sprout.

Stella pulled her close and pressed their lips together, her hands cupping Scully’s head and her waist. Scully pinched the buttons on Stella’s blouse as the kiss deepened, and Stella’s tongue grazed her teeth. Her hands begged permission, tugging on the top button until Stella popped it open.

Stella trailed kisses down her neck, marking her collarbone as Scully opened each button on the vanilla silk blouse. Years ago, Scully might have been shy, might have turned away in a flutter to catch her breath. Time often tamed people, softened and sweetened them, but Scully seemed to be an exception. She knew time had made her braver, wilder, sharpened her edges and hardened her angles; it had carved her like wind on a mountain, stripping away grasses and shrubbery until only bare rock—jagged and majestic—remained. Her walls had become nearly insurmountable to most people, her experiences barring her from a life of domesticity and casual conversation. 

Stella, she suspected, was very much the same. Although domesticity had not so much evaded Stella as reluctantly agreed to leave her alone.

She slid her hands beneath Stella’s blouse to the waist of her skirt, holding her as she might spin pottery, and Stella’s teeth grazed her shoulder. Stella shrugged out of the rest of her blouse, and with a smirk, Scully unfastened the detective’s lace-covered bra and tossed it aside.

Stella Gibson had the breasts of a Greek Statue, and Scully attended to them with due care. She gave the detective a gentle push, and to her surprise, Stella only gazed at her through shadowed eyes, her lips curved in measured contentment. 

“Lie down,” Scully commanded, surprised at her own confidence and the husky dip in her voice. She hadn’t known her vocal chords could drop to such a pitch, rolling like a piano, laced with desire.

Stella lay back on the lush black pillows of her sofa, bare from the waist up, all lust and pride and aged wine. She reached for Scully impatiently, wrapping her fingers over the doctor’s tiny wrist and pulling her on top. 

“Bedroom?” Stella suggested airily, her eyes flicking toward the open door to her bedroom. Scully shook her head. 

“Too late for that, I think. We’re not going anywhere until you come,” and she chuckled as Stella sighed happily—too late indeed. 

She kissed down Stella’s neck, the sharp ridge and hollows of her collarbones, leaving tiny marks like the holes in a lace collar or in a wooden flute, waiting for fingers to brush over them. The soft buzz in her head from her wine had worn off, replaced by a warm burn, heating her from the inside out, tickling her skin. She kissed the freckles on Stella’s breasts one by one, traced the patterns her lips had created on Stella’s sides until her fingers found the zipper of a black pencil skirt. 

Stella reached for her, turning the doctor’s attention from her breasts and pulling her back for another kiss. As Scully slowly tugged down the shining silver zipper, Stella held onto the taste of Scully’s lips, her glass of wine and her cherry chapstick.

Scully’s deft fingers found Stella’s hip bare but for the thin silk band of a thong, and she slipped her fingers under the loosened waist of her skirt. She traced circles on Stella’s inner thigh, her fingers dancing and tickling until Stella leaned impatiently into her, and she rid the detective of her skirt and panties. Scully arched her eyebrows appreciatively of the woman sprawled neatly, naked but for a red pendant on her clavicle, on the sofa. 

“Hold on,” Stella husked, reaching for Scully’s wrinkled blouse. Scully left her hand where it was, inches from Stella’s aching center. “If I’m going to be naked in my living room, you ought to be too,” said Stella, her tone almost businesslike. It oscillated between composed and volcanic, a pale grey wall and a mural of lovers and sunsets.

She made quick work of Scully’s shirt, her underwire and slacks. The small golden cross hung around her neck—once a symbol of the faith she belonged to, now a symbol of the faith that belonged to her. They each carried stones and shipwrecks, sand and survivors in their pockets to remind themselves of all they had lost and acquired. All the trials they had suffered and the peaks they had clung to, wind-worn, step by step until they reached the top. Now, just beginning to sweat beneath the lamp-light, they clung only to each other like two boards drifting through the ocean, tasting salt on each other’s skin.

Stella slipped Scully’s cotton underwear to her knees, and she kicked it off as if freeing herself of a rope that bound her ankles together. They must both be bare, Scully realized, to spy the scars and aged rock on each others’ bodies, sharpened and sensitive to the slightest touch.

As she leaned forward, as her hand slipped toward Stella’s center, she admired the unabashed freckles on her detective’s pale chest, a private galaxy. Stella gasped, a soft, high sound that defied the rich swing-voice she’d spoken in earlier. Scully took satisfaction in the uncharacteristic sound, her lips curling into a smirk.

Enjoying the sensation of Stella coming undone beneath her, Scully teased her with light fingers. Stella reached impatiently for the doctor’s back, pulling her close until her teeth nipped at Scully’s breast.

Scully moaned softly. “Dangerous game,” she murmured, her voice sweet and heavy.

“I know how to play,” said Stella with a playful quirk of her lips. She wiggled her eyebrows, just far enough from Scully’s face that the doctor caught the gesture. She admired the beginning of a purple mark that bloomed on Scully’s left breast.

“I had better be able to hide that,” Scully said, following Stella through the corner of her eye. Stella’s hair was wilded, her face flush and freckled and alluring in its severity.

Caught for a moment by Stella’s beauty—an unorthodox beauty, chiseled, uncaptured by dolls and paintings, Scully made her decisive move. Her hand slipped to Stella’s clitoris and rubbed teasing circles, faster by the second. 

Stella’s lips stilled, and she arched her head back. “Fuck me,” she breathed. It was her chuckle that let Scully know—Stella was not ceding control. There would be no ceding control on either of their parts; they fit together like Jenga blocks. They would tumble over the edge, gladly, together. They would never bloom like a rose, never transform. They would only strip pieces and pains away, bare themselves, rock in high altitude where small troubles are forgotten and the sky is touchable, and lightning rises from below. 

Scully traced Stella’s torso with her lips, stopping to offer a kiss to one erect nipple. She slipped one adept finger into Stella’s center and, satisfied with the needy moan the detective let out in response, she thrust and curled in a rhythm, examining the flutter of Stella’s eyes as she neared orgasm. She teased, adding a second finger, then a third. They had tired of the game, and she could see it tell in the tightening of muscles as Stella grew wetter. Slowly, surely, Stella cried out, and Scully slowed her thrusts and the circles she drew over Stella’s clit. 

“You… are incredible,” Scully whispered, “unbelievably beautiful,” and Scully could claim experience in the realm of the unbelievable.  
Stella’s body relaxed; she reached lazily for Scully and pulled the doctor atop her. Her chest rose evenly, the rhythmic thump of her heart resonated against Scully’s ear.

“You’re quite incredible as well,” she whispered coyly. “Now it’s my turn.” With a guiding hand on Scully’s back, she moved them from the couch and toward the master bedroom. Scully’s cheek rested on her bare shoulder. 

Stella’s bedroom was immaculate, in perfect order, and bare of trinkets. It was plain, but there was an air of familiarity and comfort about it, as if she had gone out of her way to create a clear space in which she could escape. A space, perhaps, that needed a new face to complete it—a new body, a new mind. 

Stella guided Scully to the bed, lay her gently on luxurious sheets. She smiled slyly, and Scully felt herself grow wetter by the second. She slid down the zipper of her slacks and pulled them off, discarding them on the floor. It was a welcome messiness, and Stella embraced it. She lay down beside Scully and teased her panties, pulling the waistband. Her eyes sought permission.

“I want you,” said Scully, hardly audible, hardly focused.

Stella captured her lips before trailing kisses toward her panties and tugging them down. Her tongue flicked Scully’s clit, then dipped into her center. She observed Scully’s ticks, her twitches and soft spots. She loved bringing someone to orgasm, producing such a blissful feeling. She believed that women were less selfish lovers, especially with other women. They achieved a balance, a fair sense of give and take. They worked to push their lovers over the brink and were given the same high in return. It was an act of care; it required attention and investment. 

She tasted Scully on her lips as the doctor came with a throaty moan. She licked her lips, smiled crookedly, and settled beside Scully as Scully’s rosy face paled again, and her glassy eyes darkened in the bedroom light.

“I’m fond of you, you know,” Stella quipped with an easy grin. Her blond hair was a bird’s nest around her face, framing her sharp angles and adding a sexy undertone to her stern countenance.

Leaning into Stella until their bodies entwined in a tangle of tired limbs, Scully returned the smile. 

It was unusual, Stella mused, for her to sleep comfortably intertwined with someone else. She felt an uncharacteristic rush of warmth and want to sleep with her arms wrapped around the tiny doctor she’d met that evening. It was a product, she supposed, of give and receive, the care they had put into each other.  
She drew Scully close; they curled together and drifted slowly away from the world. 

“I’d like to see you again after this,” Scully murmured drowsily, just before falling asleep.

Stella found herself replying in the same sleepy whisper, “I would like that as well.” And they built for themselves a galaxy on Stella’s bedroom ceiling, too vast to shatter. No matter the world outside, the stars in their room would not go out; they would burn with incense, wine and sex.

There were worse things.


	2. The Morning After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scully was an anomaly in the natural laws of Stella Gibson. She didn't know why, but she'd asked Scully to stay for breakfast.

Scully woke slowly, drifting between the tickle of a feather duvet on her neck and the peace of mind she so rarely achieved. For a moment, she lingered in the starry dream world that had made itself visible last night. Then she stretched, arched her back, and realized with a jolt of cold air through the covers that she was completely naked.

The sky turned to ceiling in an instant; Scully shivered dramatically and curled into the warm body she found beside her.

Stella barely stirred—she’d struck Scully as a light sleeper, but perhaps the previous night’s activities had tired her as much as they had Scully. It was a pleasant tired, but tired nonetheless. Stella was still caught in a deep sleep, still suspended in their personal solar system, watching colorful planets whizz ever by. That, Scully supposed, must by why Stella’s home decor was so minimal. Her bedroom became whatever it needed to be—a blank canvas each night, depending on her mood, her daily worries, who was with her.

“Good morning,” Scully whispered, her lips hot against Stella’s neck. It was technically morning—5:00 AM. She had to prepare for the last day of the conference. Tomorrow she would return to DC. 

A rusty moan rumbled sleepily from Stella’s throat. “I don’t…” she mumbled, struggling to finish her thoughts. “I don’t do this often…” she paused again, finally rolling over to face Scully. Her hair was wilded from sex and much-needed rest, her face warm and sleepy. “I don’t do this often, but you can stay this morning. If you’d like to, of course.” Her voice regained its elegance as she fully woke.

Scully blinked. She hadn’t expected the offer. She’d expected to dress herself and leave with a polite, fond goodbye and not a protest from Stella. She’d expected a phone number at the most, maybe a quick cup of coffee.

But Stella reached lazily beneath the covers and rested her hand on Scully’s hip, her fingers barely brushing the ouroboros tattooed on her back. She could see Stella’s face in the dark, her hair and the outline of her shoulders. Her eyes seemed so morose in the dark. They were owl’s eyes—round and wise and curious, never sad but always tinged with melancholy. 

“I didn’t think I would be staying,” Scully mumbled as Stella’s hand snuck around to her breasts. She gasped softly, curling closer to Stella.

“I won’t keep you here if you would prefer to leave,” said Stella, completely earnest, not a note of hurt in her words.

It was an open invitation to leave or stay, whichever Scully chose. Measured Stella was back; she held her voice as if delivering a business offer. And it was a rare offer, in so many ways. Scully doubted Stella Gibson extended these morning invitations often, but there was a familiarity between them which neither could ignore. They understood the risks and rewards of their work; they walked every day on a high-wire in clippy heels, forever poised above the rabbit hole.

Their likeness— necessary distinctions—drew them together, magnets of reverse polarity.

Scully mulled over the possibilities. She could go now, perhaps never to see the entrancing Stella Gibson again. This could be the typical one night stand for them both; Stella would not extend this offer again.

Or she could stay, attend her seminar after morning sex and coffee, words exchanged that hadn’t been the night before. Newborn suns in her eyes. And then perhaps she could leave London tied inevitably to Stella’s life like a falconer’s bird—lone and free, yet drawn back to its companion come hunting season.

“Well?” Stella asked calmly. Her eyes betrayed little.

“I think,” Scully wrapped her arm over Stella’s shoulder, pulling her freckled face closer until every worry line, wound line, and laughter line because visible and her life was laid out before Scully’s eyes. “I think I will stay.”

Stella had such lovely lines, calligraphy etched into her skin to tell a tale worthy of Homer. 

She kissed the weathered corners of Stella’s eyes, and she felt the detective’s hands begin to wander again. They explored her breasts, flicking her nipples until they hardened with arousal and dancing down her torso. Scully arched her back as Stella’s cool fingers tickled her spine and cupped her ass beneath the bed cover. Her lips tangled with Stella’s; her hair fell over them both in a copper bird’s nest. 

Stella’s tongue sought entrance between her lips, and Scully granted it enthusiastically, loving the uncoordinated bumping together of their noses, the sweet, heavy breaths of morning arousal. They still moved slowly, ponderously, shaking off the final scraps of sleep from their bodies.

This was not the wine-fueled chess game of the previous night. No, this was a practiced waltz on the off-beats—the Act III before a finale, spread-eagled and naked on the stage with a spotlight capturing even the intimate details of their faces. Last night was the dress rehearsal, exploring each other’s bodies like untouched mountains. Controlled, witty, moved to the bedroom during intermission. This morning was the fluid intensity of a ballerina stealing the show while she can, knowing that any day she could shatter her ankle and never dance again.

Scully wrapped her legs around the detective’s hips, holding on to the grounding string of Stella’s body. She let Stella’s hand slip between their torsos, running their ribs like a piano scale as Stella’s freckled breasts pressed against hers. The worry lines in Stella’s forehead caught her hair, and the lusting shadow in Stella’s eyes was greyer now, like a thundercloud waiting to burst.

Two fingers slipped between Scully’s legs, and in a moment, her capacity to reason and observe abandoned her. They teased her, tickling and pinching her inner thighs before rubbing gently against her clit. Scully broke her lips from Stella’s and a long breathy sigh escaped her.

She shifted her weight, wrapping her leg over Stella’s hip. Catching her intent, Stella knotted her limbs around Scully’s, weaving their bodies together like a cobweb marking its dark corner. They tumbled and tangled until comfortable, until they could be inside each other, their cheeks and lips pressed lopsidedly together.

Once dancing among stars, Scully mused, hot and dazed, now they were wrapped together in a burrow, two creatures safe from the perilous world that awaited them. And Stella’s bedroom ceiling grew roots over them so the Earth did not collapse on their shoulders. Something uncharacteristically tender had made itself known between them, settling in their elegant haggardness, their mutual trials, all the little things they’d lost and some of the big ones. Some understanding had passed between them in the callused hands with which they helped each other climb. Scully wondered if, once they reached the edge and hurtled over, if they’d ever come unstuck from each other’s lives.

They came at once, in silent, hoarse breaths and pre-dawn sweat that smelled of last night’s perfume. As passionate, if not as extravagant, as last night’s escapades. 

Scully pushed away the bed covers, searching for the blast of cool air that had hit her as she woke up. Her forehead rested against the hollow of Stella’s collarbone, clinging to the faint smell of her perfume and the alcoholic, gunpowder smell unique to Stella Gibson. Eventually, she at up in bed, combing her fingers through knotted red hair.

Stella got up and wrapped herself in a silk robe before wordlessly padding into the bathroom. She locked the door behind her and splashed cold water over her face. When she looked in the mirror, she saw an abundance of freckles, dark circles carved with a spoon, features that had sharpened and worn well over the years. She saw the culprits of her crookedness—the bend of her Roman nose to the right, the tiny misalignment of her lips. There was something off-balance in her face that made her all the more intimidating, and she’d come to find it dashing. She appreciated her severity.

She heard Scully in the bedroom, zipping what was probably her skirt. Scully was strangely mesmerizing—such a tiny body bore so much intelligence, so much wit and worry. Scully carried the world on her shoulders. Perhaps she was quick to assume character, but her job had taught her to observe and analyze, assess ticks and quirks and linchpins. 

She tied her hair into a neat updo and padded into the bedroom, only to find it empty, the soft gurgle of a coffeepot sounding in her kitchen. She found Scully perched on her countertop watching the coffeepot, two mugs beside her.

“I figured you wouldn’t mind if I made you some,” she explained, almost tentatively. Stella got the sense she was accustomed to making her own way in the mornings. The space of another woman’s home was alien to her, but dressing herself and pouring two cups of coffee seemed an everyday act. 

“I don’t mind,” Stella assured her, leaning against the countertop. She rested her hand on Scully’s thigh, her smooth blue slacks. Scully twitched beneath her touch; her lips quirked, and a blush crept up her cheeks to match the red of her hair. 

She was an odd woman, Stella mused—one moment she seemed almost child-like, the next, immortal, as if she’d weathered a thousand years on this planet and was prepared to weather a thousand more. There was the wisdom in her eyes of a wizard woman, in spite of her scientific mind, like she could see faeries and monsters invisible to everyone else.

Scully swung her bare feet over the counter. “Why am I here?” she asked between sips of coffee, and Stella’s eyebrows shot up. 

“Why are you here, in London?” She smirked. “Should I take you to the hospital?”

“No, why am I in your kitchen this morning?” Scully said with a shrug. “You don’t seem the type to keep people around for breakfast.” Scully held her mug with both hands, ignoring the handle. She shivered faintly. 

Stella turned up the thermostat and leaned against her grey kitchen wall. Taking a long gulp of coffee, she turned her eyes to the ceiling. In truth, she hadn’t really considered whether Scully would be staying for breakfast until she saw Scully’s face in the morning—sleepy-eyed, forehead pressed against hers, copper hair splayed on the pillow—and she had, without much thought, asked her to stay. 

“You are…” she searched for the right word ”—an anomaly.” A remarkable, peculiar outlier in the natural laws of Stella Gibson. 

“Anomalies seem to have forged the course of my life,” muttered Scully. Scientific anomalies had built her for twenty years, built her and broken her time and time again. 

Stella fetched a waffle iron from her cabinet and a jar of candied cherries from her pantry.

“But,” Scully continued, watching Stella bustle about the kitchen, “you are an anomaly in my world as well, Detective Gibson.”

Setting the waffle iron on the counter, Stella popped a candied cherry between her lips and sashayed over to Scully. “Perhaps—” she stepped comfortably between Scully’s legs where they hung from the countertop, “we both need a bit more peculiarity in our lives.” Stella’s lips had turned pink from the cherry, and she stained the doctor’s Cupid’s bow when she kissed it. Scully wrapped her legs around Stella’s back and arms around her neck. 

“We must,” Scully breathed between kisses, “at some point… make breakfast.” 

“I never suggested we fuck here,” said Stella slyly. “But I rarely have the capacity for pointless fun—I doubt you have either—so while we do, we ought to take advantage of it.” One hand pressed into the small of Scully’s back, the other sliding down to cup her ass, she lifted the tiny doctor off the counter. 

Scully was surprisingly light, as if she had the hollow bones of a songbird. She sloppily kissed Scully’s plump lower lip and turned a circle on the tile floor with Scully in the air, clinging to her shoulders and cackling quietly. 

Stella rarely took joy in someone’s smile—from her experience, smiles were either saccharin or a basic courtesy. But she was satisfied, seeing Scully grin widely and laugh like a child on a roller coaster. 

This was a morning Stella could not have shared with a man, in part because seeing men in her house made her uneasy, but also because men wanted to  _ care for,  _ to  _ take care of,  _ not simply to  _ care about.  _

Stella would not be cared for. She refused adamantly to be taken care of, but she could handle being care about. Not every day of her life, but certainly on occasion.

She stopped spinning, dizzy and breathless, and set Scully back on the countertop. She blew wild blond hair from her face. She kissed Scully’s lips, her cheek, down her neck to her collarbone. 

“Visit me sometimes.” She stepped away and turned her attention to the waffle maker.

“I’d like to,” said Scully, watching Stella busy her hands with candied cherries and waffle mix. She tucked a red hair behind her ear. “I’ll have to get ready again now.” 

Stella looked up. The doctor’s hair was mussed and untidy, her clothes wrinkled. Her lips twitched. “Small price to pay.”

This was how they sustained themselves—wit and wonder, always busying and exploring. They climbed perhaps when they shouldn’t, asked too many questions and answered them too confidently. Women in a male-dominated world, drawn to each other like trees clinging to the top of a mountain—always facing windward, aged but never beaten down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't help but write a follow-up to the first chapter of Windward.

**Author's Note:**

> Find my Tumblr at poeticsandaliens and my other work under the AO3 handle aster_risk.


End file.
